This was supposed to be a beta and isn't actually going to be finalised until the VGM updates are finished, but this little applet should be useful if you're struggling to build a movepool or don't want to keep counting VGMs.

Can't guarantee it will work properly, but I've tried it and haven't had any problems yet, for what it's worth. Helps more with cross-referencing than it does with actually building a movepool since you still have to enter everything manually...

Click to expand...

Required - All movepools, without exception, must contain all of these moves.

General Description: This Pokémon is very risky to play, but very rewarding if played correctly.

Justification: Many of the Pokémon that are successful in OU are relatively easy to play or have great "safe" options (e.g. U-turn). Yet, many other Pokémon look very powerful, but are less successful than they could be because of some large risks involved (e.g. Hydreigon), and some aren't successful at all (e.g. Honchkrow). This self-balancing concept intends to explore what it takes for a risky Pokémon to be successful, and how much inherent risk a Pokémon can get away with. It should be emphasized that this concept is NOT about luck management, but rather, it is about what the user can afford to do given his/her opponent's options, and vice versa.

Questions To Be Answered:

What is the relationship between risk and potential consequences, both positive and negative?

What kinds of inherently risky tactics are successful in the OU metagame?

Do risky Pokémon need some form of safe options (e.g. switch-ins) to be successful in OU, or can it get away with having few really safe options?

How does Substitute, a well-known "safe" move with nearly universal distribution, impact how this Pokémon is built and played?

How do existing Pokémon use and deal with risky situations?

Can risky Pokémon be played well in the early game, or are they better off put into action later on?

Aurumoth should be reasonably versatile both offensively and in a support capacity.

Aurumoth should be able to sweep, wall-break, or support, but not all at once.

Aurumoth should be able to perform each of its roles, whether physical or special, regardless of ability, etc, to a relatively similar standard.

Aurumoth should not be biased towards any individual set or role.

Aurumoth should have no hard counters, but many checks.

Aurumoth should be competitively viable.

Obviously, not every single one of these will be possible, but they should all, I think, be self-evident as an ideal. I'm going to avoid stating explicitly what I personally want from these movepools, as I am a very great proponent of the philosophy that you should choose what you personally think should be on the movepool, not what you think will get it slated by the Topic Leader. There is colossal room for variety between all of the Allowed moves and the limits imposed, so there should be a particularly diverse set of movepools this time around.

This is the last competitive part of the CAP that I will be presiding over as Topic Leader, which is an extremely sad thing for me. But I can sob for ten thousand words in the Final Product thread.

Scorpions are amazing. Sleek, shiny, and an entomologist's dream – claws, arched stinging tail, and pretty much screaming "I am the greatest thing ever" in every possible way. They can live in places that vary seasonally in temperature by 80 degrees. Some can go for a year without food. Some can be frozen in a block of ice for days and be perfectly functional when defrosted. They have hairs on their claws that can detect vibrations in the air. And this is the one with the best name.

Interestingly, scorpion venom tends to decrease in potency with size; the bigger ones don't need it so much, so the Imperial Scorpion is relatively harmless to humans. It also has the charming habit of carrying its babies on its back, as in Nastyjungle's artwork. Sweet. And it only occasionally gets bored and eats them.

Attacking VGMs (20):
I tried to strike a good balance between Physical and Special power, giving Aurumoth great coverage on both sides, as well as the infamous BoltBeam combination to ensure that it will be walled by almost nothing, given the right set. It has a plethora of options for the special side, but has access to Priority, rock/fighting coverage (Terrakion has shown us how balling that combo is), and STAB Megahorn. Also, I have elicited to give it Surf and not Hydro Pump as Surf is already greatly boosted by Rain, which is by no means rare in this meta: Hydro Pump would be simply too much.

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Supportive VGMs (18):
Here, I gave Aurumoth a number of tricks and moves to play with, with everything from CounterCoat or Dual Screens suicide Illusion lead to Wish passer to even No Guard bulky Will-o-Wisper. I also gave it many options to set up, which will require the opponent to keep on their toes and prevent Aurumoth from being identified easily simply by being on a team. However, I have chosen not to give it Substitute, as I feel that it is too easy to get a Sub up with Aurumoth, and that almost-free subs might just be a bit TOO much for Aurumoth.

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Flavor (33):
I attempted to paint Aurumoth as a benevolent pokemon that could easily be mistaken for a deity, giving it moves like Ancientpower and Bestow to show how it would help people and Pokemon alike, acting as a benevolent guardian angel. Even going so far as to craft its own body to protect others, using the six "wings" it has as physical guards via Defend Order. But it is no mere passive guardian, and can bring down such wrathful moves such as Sheer Cold and Horn Drill that there is no mistake that Aurumoth is deserving of its angelic reputation. And if everything else fails, it is willing to put its very life on the line with a Final Gambit, leave behind a harsh, crippling Memento, or even pray for the future with a Healing Wish.

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Level up (Based off Metagross. 22 Moves.):
I decided to base my level up movepool off of Metagross, as not only is it a fellow psychic type, it is also a pesudo-legendary, which Aurumoth most certainly qualifies for with 600 BST. Like Metagross, it gets a healthy mix of offensive and defensive moves, has shed its crappy pre-evo moves from level-up, and has a physically defining move at level 44, a defining setup move at 45 and 62, and a absurdly powerful (relatively, Tail Glow's competitive merits are a different story) capstone at level 70.

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Egg Moves (Egg Group: Bug / Field. No Illegal Move Combinations. 10 Moves):
Egg Moves are a mix of flavor and actually useful moves. I tired to play into the deity flavor a lot here, painting Aurumoth as a benevolent pokemon one could easily mistake for an angel of some sort, with such helpful moves like Bestow and Heal Pulse, but still maintaining the angel feel, with such powerful moves of wrath like Extremespeed, Sheer Cold, and Cosmic Power. As for the egg groups: Bug because, well it's a bug, quite clearly, and Field because Aurumoth really doesn't need any illegal move headaches. It needs all the vairety it can get.

As for Pay Day? It's kind of a Easter Egg move. AURUMoth.

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There are a number of things going on in this Level-Up pool, so I'll start with the overall flavor I was going for when putting it together. I wanted to touch on the celestial themes of the art design, especially the connotations of protection ("guardian angel") and mysticism (a sense of "the unknown," as it were). Dante tells us that angels can be good or evil, and so I've thrown in a touch of both as they almost duel with one another as the Poke levels up, to make the flavor more complex. These elements not only reference the Psychic secondary-typing without being overt, they also play to the "pseudo-legendary" notion of our 600 BST stat spread by implying a greater backstory than meets the eye (not that I have a particular story in mind, but they should lead to plenty of good Pokedex entries). I also tried to experiment with text-blocking and visualization, wherein if you give the list of moves just a quick skim or passing overview, it should make four words jump out at you without you necessarily noticing: Dance, Wind, Heal, and Wish. That is because those words are all repeated more than once amongst the move names themselves and are often spatially situated either near each other (for impact) or far apart (for the reminder-effect). So, you should feel a subliminal sense of whimsy or lightness from those four words' connotations, even as you read through the list word-for-word. If it doesn't work, then oh well; it's a poetry thing, I'm not particularly familiar with it, and it's not super important.

Moving on, I use the Biblically-significant number "3" as the backbone for three consecutive sets of three moves each: Silver Wind / Sunny Day / Heal Pulse ; Ominous Wind / Will-o-Wisp / Final Gambit ; and Ancientpower / Wish / Healing Wish. The core of the movepool, these three sets all have similar progressions of [attack]-->[general aid]-->[specific aid]. The first set (presumably belonging to the "Basic" or "Baby" evolutionary stage) is much more innocent and subdued than the latter two, which focus on the more mature concepts of suffering (Will-o-Wisp to create suffering vs. Wish to remove suffering) and self-sacrifice (Final Gambit to hurt an enemy vs. Healing Wish to help a friend). The narrative of the learnset, based on this progression, is that while Aurumoth (or its pre-evolutions) can be robbed of its innocence and tempted with "evil" or aggression (@Ominous Wind/WoW/Gambit), as it grows and matures (evolves), it becomes more selfless and "good," in the end. I'm thinking if we go for a three-stage evolutionary process, we could choose any sort of method to flavorfully bring it all together, although I personally think activating evolutions at the learning of Ominous Wind and Ancientpower would be most acceptable in this case: the basic stage could be a cutemon, the middle stage emo or something, and the final stage, of course, would be Aurumoth itself (there are even precedents for evolution-by-Ancientpower, including Yanma-->Yanmega). Speaking of Biblical numerology, although less significantly, I also use a lot of the Biblically-significant number "7" in the Level-Up pool: attacks begin to be learned at L7, all attacking moves are learned at a level with a singles digit of "7", and most moves are learned seven levels apart, excepting Ominous Wind, Ancientpower, and Tail Glow, the three of which are learned six levels after their previous moves, for a touch of subliminal mystery (6-6-6 wtf!?). There are also 12 non-Heart Scale moves to be learned, and 12 is a major Biblical number as well.

The movepool as a whole is largely pacifistic, which I thought was appropriate for a seraphim design, and so the only attacks included here are Tackle (out of necessity for a generic starting attack), and then Silver Wind, Ominous Wind, and Ancientpower. I like these moves not only because of their individual flavor merits (irrespective of one another), but also because they are the three moves available that each have a 10% chance of raising all of Aurumoth's stats at once, but with only 5 PP apiece, which is my sort of tongue-in-cheek allusion to the concept, flavor-wise. Ironically, Aurumoth gets all of its best stat-boosting moves here as well, either by leveling up to Tail Glow or by going to the Move Relearner with a Heart Scale or two to unlock the secret Dancing powers it never knew it had.

Aurumoth gets three recovery moves here: Heal Pulse, Wish, and Healing Wish, and while it can only benefit directly from one (and even then it doesn't necessarily benefit), the moves still offer that "guardian angel" vibe of taking care of its teammates, even if it's at a cost to Aurumoth itself. Other flavor choices include Sunny Day and Will-o-Wisp, which I added because of the angelic connection to fire and flame (Seraph literally means "burning ones"). In the case of these moves, Sunny Day represents more of the "clarity" aspect of the angel-fire relationship ("Clear Sky" is the Japanese translation of the move, and Sunny Day itself is a Fire-type move), while Will-o-Wisp offers the more literal interpretation of "creating fire."

Note: not that it matters, but there are actually a few illegalities involving Safeguard; however, since Safeguard is also a TM, they aren't "real" illegalities, and as such I have not included Safeguard in either of these lists, since it is legal with all moves.

Whoa, so here's where the offense comes in. I put Aurumoth's hard-hitting STAB attacks and coverage moves here because, well, it needs them somewhere, and the Egg pool still runs on flavor, just with more leeway. The flavor additions I included are Disable, Feint, and Safeguard, which are all, to various degrees, good double or triple-battle moves (and since I already started with Heal Pulse, I thought I might as well toss in a few extra goodies), and also Wing Attack because lol it has six wings. They also fit thematically into the flavor priorities I gave myself for the Level-Up movepool, in terms of exploring protectiveness (or lack thereof; both Feint and Safeguard do this) and mystical powers (both Disable and Safeguard do this). Gengar has turned Disable into an intriguing move, to say the least, so I hope people experiment with it, especially considering how, should this movepool be chosen, Choice Scarf Pokemon may be commonly relied upon to check our CAP, and a Sub/Disable or, riskier yet, QD/Disable set might frustrate their gameplans.

The only notable move illegalities here are that both Megahorn and Close Combat are illegal with Hydro Pump, which basically means mixed sets will not have auto-Rain abuse built into them. While this doesn't change the fact that QD/TG are both legal with Hydro Pump (unavoidable in the case of Quiver Dance), or that Megahorn/CC are both legal with Surf, or that Thunder is legal with everything, it remains a move illegality that reigns in the power of Rain-bosted Hydro Pump at least a little bit. No, I didn't do this on purpose, but I can at least explain why it isn't a big deal that it turned out this way. So yeah, movedump.

With the exception of Bug Buzz and Hydro Pump, Aurumoth gets all of its Special attacks here, including its primary Psychic STABs and Electric/Fighting/Fire/Ice coverage. It also gets a physical STAB attack in X-Scissor, which is a more reliable alternative to Megahorn. Additionally, Dual Screens are present, potentially pairing nicely with Healing Wish and/or Illusion. There is never a good way to talk about TMs, so I'll just say that I went through the list with an eye for the competitive VGMs I wanted, type-move and move-move requirements, Bug/Psychic moves, and generically-required TMs. After all that, there wasn't much left to add and so this is the result. Aurumoth learns 43 TM/HMs, with Sunny Day, Will-o-Wisp, and Safeguard as repeats from the LU/Egg pools, leaving 40 moves unique to this list.

Right, so now I should explain my competitive decisions. I have taken a predominantly offensive approach to this movepool, especially on the Special side, which I personally believe is the most practical approach. I sympathize with the concerns that this limits the viability of Physical Aurumoth or makes it necessarily inferior to Special Moth, but as I explain below, the two actually balance out better than a passing glance of the summary would assume. The movepool as a whole is short on gimmicks and is instead laser-focused on providing a variety of potential offensive sets, which means Aurumoth will likely have 4mss but shouldn't feel like it's wasted any of those moveslots. Here are a few key elements of the movepool:

Quiver Dance/Tail Glow: I have made my feelings on Quiver Dance and, by extension, Dragon Dance very clear, and so I won't beat a dead horse by rehashing it all in this Submission. Suffice it to say that QD and DD play very differently, obviously, as do QD and TG, and DD and TG. Quiver Dance may be the hallmark Aurumoth set in the end, but there's nothing "wrong" with that necessarily, nor is there any guarantee that's going to happen. Choosing attacks for QD is bound to be a stressful process, and with all the options available, the user's coverage choice(s) may define CAP's set, along with its set of checks and counters ("situational checks", remember). Tail Glow is the stall-busting version of Quiver Dance, giving Aurumoth the one-turn boost enough to power through bulky defensive checks like Jirachi and Jellicent. Tail Glow sets may also opt for Close Combat for coverage (LO Moth gets 66.7% - 78.4% out of Blissey without any Atk EVs at all) by dropping Bug Buzz, but in general they have the same coverage options as Quiver Dance, except perhaps with a better chance at exploiting Electroweb or Icy Wind.

Dragon Dance: A Dragon Dance set has fewer coverage options in relation to Quiver Dance, but it can still access that great Bug/Psychic/Fighting coverage for sweeping. DDMoth has noticeably higher damage output after a boost than its Special counterpart, thanks to its 120 BP primary STAB and a 120 BP, 100% accurate primary coverage move (compared to Special Aurumoth's 90 BP STABs and 95-120 BP coverage moves that trade power for, of all things, accuracy, just like Megarhorn vs. X-Scissor STAB). For clarification, nothing in OU resists this coverage set; in fact, the only possible typing that could resist all three attack types is Ghost/Steel, and there are none of those currently in existence (for the playtest). I also predict DD sets will be tempted to run Overheat or Hydro Pump (in the Rain) over Zen Headbutt or Close Combat, in order to get through the physical Steel-types that Megahorn/CC couldn't otherwise handle in one shot, like Forretress or Skarmory, or they may perhaps even run Substitute for general utility or aid in generating additional boosts. When all is said and done, the physical coverage in terms of moveslots is only deceptively limited. I suppose with the apparent power of Quiver Dance available, physical Moth may be less common, although I would wager that would make it more surprising and thus more difficult to check, possibly even baiting in a Special wall and getting an easy KO or a second turn to boost. Also unlike Quiver Dance, Dragon Dance is easier to bluff with on Illusion sets, and could really stress out opponents with the thought of not even knowing if it's DD Aurumoth or DD Salamence out on the field (Salamence causes a lot of switches).

Coverage: Both physical and special-based sets have access to Bug/Psychic/Fighting coverage in their chosen spectrums, which is a fine baseline for generic sweeping. The Fighting moves are Close Combat and Focus Blast, which I chose for their power and clear relationship with our Risk/Reward concept. In general, the coverage options are high-powered and have clear downsides associated with them, specifically Focus Blast, Close Combat, Overheat, SolarBeam, Hydro Pump, Thunder, and Blizzard. I wanted high-powered coverage moves to aid in "mixed attacking," since spreading out EVs that thinly would make for a sad, sad moth. Now, I understand that a lot of folks prefer not to play fast-and-loose like this, so I have also included Surf, Thunderbolt, and Ice Beam as the "safe" coverage options for Special-Attacking Aurumoth. This should open up plenty of avenues for maintaining good neutral or super-effective coverage without mandating any one Ability over the others. The breadth of attacking options can also open up more chances to bluff with Illusion on a larger variety of teams.

BoltBeam: Thunderbolt/Ice Beam, Thunder/Blizzard, and Electroweb/Icy Wind are all present on this movepool, meaning there are 9 different ways to achieve "BoltBeam" coverage, none of which include Hidden Power (e.g. Electroweb/Ice Beam, Icy Wind/Thunder, etc.)! Since Icy Wind/Electroweb both have the special side-effect of lowering opponents' Speed (Speed is very important for checking this CAP), and since No Guard makes Blizzard/Thunder usable without weather (and weather makes Thunder/Blizzard usable without No Guard), and since Ice Beam/Thunderbolt are the happy middle-ground, interesting Ice/Electric/Ability combinations are bound to pop up and may even come with some great surprise value to otherwise confident switch-ins.

Status: Toxic and Will-o-Wisp make for useful statuses on an offensive Pokemon, as they target defensive and offensive Pokemon alike, with turn-by-turn damage speeding up the KOing process. Will-o-Wisp has the added effect of crippling Physical attackers, notably U-turners trying to take advantage of Aurumoth's glaring weakness to that common and well-distributed move. I didn't include any Paralysis-inducing moves in the movepool, and I make up for that by giving the player options between QD/DD and Icy Wind/Electroweb. I think Icy Wind and Electroweb are useful enough to deal with faster switch-ins while not being generically useful like Glare or Thunder Wave would be. They also do damage while lowering Speed, which is more appropriate for the offensive nature of this CAP. The way Aurumoth's Speed interacts with the metagame and with its own concept is crucial enough, in my opinion, to warrant temporary Speed manipulation (raise your Speed or lower your opponent's) instead of confidently inflicting permanent status. In terms of the concept, I like this approach much, much better.

Support: Healing Wish, Light Screen, Reflect, and Wish are all present in this movepool as reliable non-status support moves, and that's about it. Aurumoth can do Dual Screens + Healing Wish if it wants, or do some general supporting with Wish and an impressive 110 HP stat. You can't call a Poke an "offensive support" teammate if it primarily supports or runs 3 support moves or whatever, so one or two of these four moves in conjunction with Toxic or Will-o-Wisp support should satisfy the 1-2 slots needed to fill that role.

Surprise: Counter, Disable, Final Gambit, Magic Coat, and Trick are all present in this movepool for surprise tactics and/or gimmick sets. Illusion Aurumoth is probably best capable of putting these particular moves to use, and I didn't want to pass up the opportunity to abuse the Ability with concept-pleasing tactics. Since Aurumoth can actually take most non-STAB and/or Scarf U-turns, I've given it Counter to destroy switch-ins. For the most part, these moves all embody the concept to a tee, as they rely on pretty smart gameplay to pull off, for enormous reward in each move's individual case.

Substitute: I settled on including Substitute because there are legitimate concerns that we can't fully assess the concept without tempting our CAP with the safety of Substitute. The move may see use on QD/DD sets, although I don't know which two attacks you could get away with using there. At the end of the day, it couldn't hurt, and I didn't want to defy flavor and precedent so much as to risk a huge debate around such a minimally-impactful move.

Level Up Reasoning(Move your mouse to reveal the content)Level Up Reasoning (open)Level Up Reasoning (close)

For my level up movepool, I wanted to start off with a classic moth Pokemon flavor, but add in a few moves hinting at Aurumoth's angelic origins. So, to start, I began by giving it Tackle, Gust and weak STAB moves, as is typical for this kind of Pokemon. In addition, I threw in Stun Spore as many moths like Pokemon are able to take advantage of powder moves from very early levels. However, when it reaches level 23, things begin to get interesting. As you may know, Aurumoth is based off of a Seraph: a celestial being that has a strong association with fire. Since I already knew that I was going to be including Overheat in its movepool for competitive reasons, I thought it would be a cool idea to throw a bit of this relationship into the level up movepool. However, at the same time, since Flamethrower and Fire Blast had been disallowed, I did not want to give the impression that Aurumoth breathed fire, as if it did, I would be odd not to get those moves. Now, as its in game animation shows, Overheat is much more of a massive release of fire energy than any sort of fire breath, yet I thought that it was way too strong of a move for Aurumoth to get at an early level, or without any previous experience with fire. As such, I decided to give it Flame Wheel somewhat early on in level. Like Overheat, Flame Wheel is more about attacking with fire around you rather than any sort of fire stream, so I thought it would make a good transition to the more powerful move later one.

After level 23, it is mostly standard fare until it gets Overheat. In this time, it grabs a few flavorful boosting moves and STABs of ever increasing usefulness. Now, while I loved the idea of Overheat showing a mastery of fire, I thought that its actual typing of Psychic/Bug was what should take the spotlight for its final few moves. First we have Megahorn, the ultimate Bug-type move, with was shown very well in KoA's animation back in the art stage. Its supreme power is very fitting for such a high level move. However, for its capstone ability, I decided to go with Future Sight, representing it gaining complete mastery over the psychic energy around it, and giving it the ability to even see into the future. For something both based off a holy creature and with a near legendary set of stats, being able to tell the future seems pretty fitting. Interestingly, while I made it the final move mostly for flavor reasons, at 100 power, it is also the most powerful Special move and the most powerful Psychic move it can use.

When it comes to flavor in the TM pool, most of the non competitive moves are pretty standard: typical Psychic associated moves like Telekinesis and Psych Up, Bug moves like Struggle Bug, and your normal selection of Hyper Beam, Giga Impact and the like that all fully evolved Pokemon are expected to have. In addition, I threw in Sunny Day, Flame Charge (which is technically a VGM but mostly there for flavor as Agility will generally be better), and SolarBeam for more of that fiery flavor that was present in the level up pool.

Competitively, the TM pool is where most of the coverage options come from. It provides Special coverage of Ice, Electric, and Ghost along with its best Psychic STAB moves and Hidden Power. On the Physical side, you have Ground and Rock moves, as well as a more reliable alternative to Megahorn in X-Scissor. On the non-damaging front, the TM pool provides Aurumoths strongest Physical boosting move: Swords Dance. It also has a few key status moves such as Will-O-Wisp, Light Screen and Reflect.

If you look at the tutor moves, you can probably tell that everything there, even the VGMs are all about flavor. Signal Beam is generally outclassed by Bug Buzz and Iron Defense is pretty much never used. At the same time though, almost all bugs have access to the former, and many to the latter, so I decided that they both would make nice additions to the movepool. As for the non-VGMs, Bug Bite is a standard for Bug types, as is Electroweb. Electroweb and Icy Wind are also notable for forming a weaker version of the classic boltbeam combo, but with the added effect of both lowering speed. While neither would likely ever be used, it is a cool flavor consideration for it to have both. Finally, the last few moves are gimmicky strategies commonly associated with Psychic types. As far as I know, two of these moves aren't even implemented in PS! as of now, so one couldn't even use these gimmicks, even if they wanted to. However, due to their association with psychic and otherwise mystical or strange Pokemon, I believe they make nice flavor additions for Aurumoth.

I love Egg moves. So much room for fun non-competitive moves, along with being the best place to put less flavorful competitive ones. On the flavor side there are moves like Foresight and String Shot which, while not the most common moves ever, have plenty of precedent on similar pokemon. Ominous Wind is another fun one as it takes a darker look at things. While the angelic creatures off of which it is based might bring good heavenly things to mind, such creatures are not always there for the benefit of everyone. Whether it be cause of less holy intentions or simply because the creatures it is facing aren't so pure, the presence of a celestial being can certainly be Ominous.

Over on the competitive side of things, the egg movepool provides access to a few of Aurumoth's most important moves: Close Combat and Hydro Pump. These provide some of the best coverage that Aurumoth could ask for, and have other benefits which I will address more specifically later on. In addition, the egg movepool contains Wish and Counter which, while not necessarily as common as the previous moves, each provide their own niche set for Aurumoth to use.

An important thing to note here is that while there are plenty of illegalities as could be expected from the Bug Egg Group, only a few are of any importance, and they are definitely Illegal for a reason. The most important of these is likely Close Combat + Hydro Pump. While on physical and special sets it makes little difference that these are illegal together, it prevents mixed sets from using arguably the best 2 coverage moves it has at the same time. Now, normally this won't be a huge problem, as you usually only need one, but it forces mixed sets to choose which of the few Pokemon it can't help against are more threatening. In addition, both of these moves are individually illegal with Wish. This is another case of forcing the player to make a choice. Wish can help with support, but it comes at the cost of coverage. Now in both these cases, you can easily patch up the missing coverage from the TM pool, but it limits player choices, forcing them to run something that may be slightly less optimal than if everything was available. Thus by choosing one of those routes, they are accepting more risk onto their team.

Stun Spore: As I have said multiple times since our abilities were decided, while I would like to see No Guard be a viable ability, I do not want to see it be used simply for powerful attacks, since the reason it was chosen as an ability was for the reliability it provides, not the ability to spam powerful moves. That being said, I think Stun Spore is the perfect way to take advantage of this. While Thunder Wave is a widely distributed move, it lacks the ability to Paralyze ground types or Pokemon with Volt Absorb or Lightning Rod. With No Guard, Stun Spore not only has the perfect accuracy of T-Wave, but also can hit and paralyze every single common Pokemon. Only Limber Pokemon who are immune to all paralysis and Sap Sipper pokemon who are essentially non existent in OU are immune. Now you might be wondering though why I gave it Stun Spore and not Glare. While it is true that Glare lacks problems with Sap Sippers, and is more reliable overall, I thought that having the lower accurate move would be more of an incentive to use No Guard, as while 75 is good enough to use without No Guard (as Will-O-Wisp shows), it makes the benefits of going with it more significant. Also, it makes more flavor sense, which is always a plus.

Will-O-Wisp: As with Stun Spore, the main reason I like this move is that while it is accurate enough for its effect to merit using even without No Guard, it provides a reward for those sets that do choose to run it. Additionally, I find the potential of Burning a foe to be of particular interest, as we have the defensive stats to function as a decent physical tank, which is an unusual strategy that would have a good chance of backfiring if not played correctly.

Agility: This is a cool move that, while not incredibly powerful itself, would allow Aurumoth to outspeed and defeat many pokemon that could typically revenge it. In addition, it gives Aurumoth a way to boost its speed when running No Guard and Illusion sets. Now, while it doesn't afford any extra power, I still think it is an interesting alternative to other boosting move. I think forcing Aurumoth to choose either speed or power when deciding on a boosting set is a great form of team building risk that we can inject into this Pokemon.

Tail Glow/Swords Dance: On the other side of things we have the power boosting moves. Among all the boosting moves in this movepool, none are more powerful than Tail Glow. In a single turn, this more boost Aurumoth's Special Attack up to astronomical levels, allowing it to plow through most threats the metagame has to offer. And on the Physical side, while it may not pack quite as much punch, Swords Dance provides more than enough power for sweeping to be worthwhile. I think of particular interest with these moves though is how they interact with the abilities. On the one hand, you could go with Weak Armor and attempt to boost both Speed and power all at once. On the other hand, you could go with Illusion, which can make setting up a breeze for an experienced player. I believe this ability interaction could be one of the most interesting things we could observe with this CAP.

Dual Screens: Now, as some people have brought up, setting up a barrier to make you even more bulky than we already are doesn't seem risky at all. However, that is looking at the moves in isolation. When we look at the situation overall, you can see how these moves would help fulfill the concept. Aurumoth's typing and stats are definitely geared to be more offensive than supporting. Relying on something like it to be your supporter is itself a very big risk to take, as it is liable to be killed off easier than a lot of other support Pokemon. However, using Aurumoth in a supportive role can definitely comes with big rewards. While for some moves like Stun Spore it was the reliability of No Guard, for moves such as Reflect and Light Screen it is Aurumoth's natural power and amazing ability in Illusion that will let it get the free opportunities to take advantage of them. While this concept often seems to lend itself more to offense than anything else, I feel that giving it ways to do things such as this, even when it might not be the best at it, is a great alternative way to go about it.

Overheat: While the movepool as a whole contains plenty of coverage options, none are as powerful as Overheat. Not only is it the strongest option Aurumoth has at its disposal, but it also hits all but one of the OU Pokemon that resists Aurumoth's STABs for super effective damage. Giving it this option will make people choice of movesets more interesting, because, while there are plenty of coverage options it has for Steel types, none are as powerful, or as risky, as Overheat.

Boltbeam: The infamous combo returns once more on Aurumoth, but unlike on many Pokemon who have it, it may not be the best choice of coverage for our bug. With its STABs covering all but a few Steel types, Ice coverage does very little for it, and the coverage of Electric is ever so slightly outclassed by the coverage of Water, as it leaves you vulnerable to Magnezone. However, even if it does not seem like the greatest combo of moves ever, I still see it as important to have access to. On Tail Glow sets where power is not an issue, Ice provides a way to break things like bulky Dragonite. Electric on the other hand provides a reliable alternative to those who want great neutral coverage on special sets without the inaccuracy of Hydro Pump, and is your best special coverage move on mixed sets running Close Combat. Now, as you may have noticed, while I have both Thunderbolt and Thunder, I only included Ice Beam and not Blizzard. The reason for this is the same reason brought up back with Stun Spore. When we decided on No Guard, it was because of the reliability it provided. However, almost no one would ever run Blizzard on a non No Guard set when Ice Beam is an option, and very few would run it even if it was the only Ice coverage move. As such, its inclusion would contribute to No Guard being used simply for power, and not for reliability. However, you then may wonder why I included Thunder. This is because of the way the metagame is shaped. Rain is the dominant force, as anyone could tell you, and as such, Thunder is a perfectly viable move, even on Pokemon that lack No Guard. Since people would have reason to use it even without the guarantee of No Guard, what running No Guard does is make sure you hit even when it isn't raining, or, that is to say, providing reliability to a move that other sets would still consider. Not simply giving more power.

Hydro Pump: Of all the special coverage moves in this movepool, I don't think any is more important than Hydro Pump. With Hydro Pump and its STABs, Aurumoth hits every single Pokemon in OU, and all but 1 Pokemon in the entire non-uber game for neutral or better. In addition, it packs high power so that Aurumoth can still pose a threat even when it has not boosted its SpA. However, the key for me with Hydro Pump is its accuracy. As you probably noticed, Hydro Pump is the only water coverage move that it has, and this is for a good reason. While I have touched on it a few times already, I just want to reiterate again that I personally believe that No Guard should be about reliability, not power. Hydro Pump is the perfect move to bring out this advantage, in my opinion. As is clearly shown by multiple Pokemon in OU, Hydro Pump is reliable enough that it is often worth using over surf, despite its less than perfect accuracy. By including Hydro Pump but not Surf, we provide Aurumoth with a good coverage move that becomes great when paired with No Guard, simply because of the reliability, but at the same time is still very good should you be using another ability.

Physical Coverage: While not quite as diverse as what it boasts on the special side, Aurumoth has a few types of physical coverage moves to choose from in Fighting, Ground and Rock. Fighting is likely the most important of these as it provides Aurumoth with perfect neutral coverage. In addition, its Fighting coverage move, Close Combat, provides the most power of any of the three. In all likelihood, if Aurumoth is running a physical set, this is the first option it will look at. However, that does not make the other options useless. Earthquake provides fantastic coverage as well, missing out of perfect neutral coverage by only a single Pokemon. Not only that, but it grabs super effective hits on Fire and Rock types, both of whom threaten it back with super effective STABs. Rock type moves in Rock Slide and Stone Edge are probably the least useful of the three, but they have their upsides. On a four move physical set, it is probably the best option it has, proving a good compliment to either of the first two coverage types. In addition, it is the best move Aurumoth has on the physical side for hitting flying types such as Dragonite. While it may not see as much use, it can be good for catching an opponent off guard in order to take out a key threat.

Substitute: Of all the moves I had to make a decision on, this was probably the toughest. However, I reached the decision to include it because I almost feel you would be taking a risk simply by running it. While Aurumoth has good neutral coverage with its STABs, there are some key OU threats it cannot handle with STAB alone. Should it choose to run substitute, it will either be forgoing coverage and thus unable to beat some of OU's top Pokemon, or it will have to forgo a boosting or other status move, greatly limiting what it is able to take on. At the same time, I feel it helps make support sets more viable, which, due to its mediocre special bulk and bad defensive typing, are innately risky, even with Substitute.

Key moves that are not included:

QuiverDance: If you don't already know what my opinion is on this move, read the links. Suffice it to say that Quiver Dance would be the worst possible move for this project, and cannot teach us much, while at the same time has the potential for a failure of concept.

Dragon Dance: Much of what applied to Quiver Dance applies here as well. It is not nearly as bad, and I do not think it would lead to a failure of concept like QD, but I don't think it is necessarily conducive to learning. I don't think we need it successful, so I don't think we should have it there to distract us.

Aura Sphere/Focus Blast: My reasoning on these is very much tied back to what I talked about as far as not including Blizzard. Focus Blast is the kind of move that people do not use ever unless they have no other choice to get the coverage they need. With both of these moves available, people would simply use No Guard to get a more powerful move rather than a more reliable one. And if I only included Focus Blast, it would see use on No Guard sets, but not any other sets, as people would use other coverage types for other abilities, once again meaning No Guard is about power and not reliability. However, with that logic, you might be wondering why I didn't include just Aura Sphere and not Focus Blast. Its true that this would eliminate the problem I have between these two moves, however, it doing so, it would screw up one of the main things I love so much about Hydro Pump. Hydro Pump is arguably the best special coverage move we have, but Aura Sphere would challenge that. It has marginally better neutral coverage, which may be enough to be considered the best move outside of No Guard, which would once again lead to people using No Guard to simply have more power. I know I have driven this point into the ground, and then some, but I consider it incredibly important that we are taking advantage of our abilities in the right way. Reliability was why we chose this ability, and that is what it should be about.

I wanted to have a lot of fun with the first pseudo-legendary Bug so I made its Level-up movepool a combination of weakbug moves along with some strong Psychic and Bug type attacks. At the beginning it has Aura Sphere and ExtremeSpeed like Togekiss does, as well as Hex, since I couldn't give up the flavor of having a 6 winged mon use Hex.

The general flavor is that it starts off with a lot of weak attacks like the starter bugs, along with things that seem like natural abilities like Double Team for a pokemon that can make illusions. It's Psychic abilities don't really come out until later in its movepool, but it quickly starts gaining more and more unique abilities as it progresses.

The Egg Moves are generally more flavorful, but include a number of excellent attacks. The notable illegalities here are with Close Combat, Hydro Pump, and Wish - all 3 can't be used together, but thanks to the event below you can use Hydro Pump with Whirlwind and Wish.

TMs, the bread and butter of most Pokemon. These round out Aurumoth's coverage and provide a few decent flavor options. I really wanted my goal here to make Aurumoth as versatile as possible offensively while removing what would traditionally be considered "Safe" STABs. The obvious exception here is Ice Beam, which I think is what it really needs to make special sets on every ability useful. The Physical movepool has some great options in Megahorn, Close Combat, and Extremespeed, the special movepool compensates with coverage.

This Aurumoth movepool brings together the classic strategies and abilities of the starter bugs and combines them with the kind of powerful moves that you would expect of a Psuedo-Legendary Pokemon. Of particular note is that this movepool is risky. In order to make room for the status and coverage moves I wanted, I had to remove the safer attacking options of X-Scissor and Surf. The result is a Pokemon that has a lot to gain and lose from each of its abilities. Weak Armor Aurumoth has an array of powerful but inaccurate attacks, No Guard Aurumoth has plenty of high BP imperfect accuracy attacks to utilize, and Illusion Aurumoth has a number of attacks it can use to bluff an opponent and punish them on a switch turn. While I did fill out the movepool to the limits, I am also well known for making sure that every "always there" move is added, and the likes of Thief, Round, Attract, Swagger, and Giga Impact unfortunately take their toll on space. Ultimately I decided against a lot of support moves since I thought Aurumoth's mission was essentially go in and cause as much havoc as quickly as possible, rather than provide surprise team support for drawn-out battles.

In-Depth by Ability:

Weak Armor

Cotton Guard works with Weak Armor to give it a stockpile of defensive boosts that not only keep physical threats at bay, but if they persist will turn Aurumoth into a threatening sweeper rapidly. It is Aurumoth's only +3 Booster so it also works with Stored Power fairly well, keeping its boosts stable.

Dragon Dance, Nasty Plot, and Swords Dance are also very effective at enabling a sweep after a Weak Armor boost, Dragon Dance essentially making it faster than opposing Scarfers while the other two boost their respective stat by +2 for more power.

No Guard

A huge number of inaccurate coverage attacks and statuses benefit from No Guard.

Inaccurate statuses are Toxic, Stun Spore, and Will-O-Wisp. 100% Accurate Burn and Paralysis are pretty good ways to cripple an opposing sweep.

Illusion

Illusion is where the real fun begins, because Aurumoth has a lot of nasty moves that benefit from Illusions various forced switches. It can mimic a number of Pokemon with or without Stealth Rock down.

The sheer distribution of Swords Dance makes it a wonderful move to use to mimic other Pokemon, and while Aurumoth doesn't have a truly "safe" option outside Psycho Cut, its Megahorn and Close Combat have excellent coverage. The ability to use all of Aurumoth's relevant physical movepool with Wish, as well as access to Extremespeed make a Swords Dance set very threatening - not only due to power, but because Aurumoth's weaknesses are fairly well covered by Lucario (everything but Fire) and Lucario itself uses Swords Dance + Close Combat + Extremespeed. You need SR off the field to pull off the bluff, but it still works if only Spikes are down. Bonus: Lucario has Justified as an ability, meaning you can possibly fake out a Dark attack and make Lucario even stronger, or use Agility Lucario with it and have some real fun.

Dragon Dance lets Aurumoth mimic Dragonite and Gyarados whether Stealth Rock is up or not. Extremespeed can also keep up an illusion of Dragonite as they have similar power, and if the foe is in KO range they still won't be able to tell. While most Gyarados use Waterfall, not Aqua Tail, it's entirely possible to construct a DDGyara set along with it and make the illusion that much more menacing. Agility can also be used in this way for certain Pokemon.

Nasty Plot was chosen over Tail Glow because Aurumoth can mimic a whole lot more Pokemon with it. While SR makes this difficult because most Nasty Plot users are not Stealth Rock weak (With the notable exception of Thundurus-T), most are vulnerable to Spikes to the same degree as Aurumoth and will thus lure in similar threats, threats which Auromoth is often better prepared to handle.

Magic Coat, Stun Spore, Trick, Whirlwind, and Will-O-Wisp are all particularly nasty when combined with Illusion, given Illusion is perhaps the ultimate luring ability. The statuses have accuracy issues, but are devastating when they surprise an unprepared opponent. Magic Coat is similarly shocking when used against an opponent that thinks they have a safe opportunity to set up a hazard or use status.

Conclusion:

I've tried to balance out flavor, utility, and the concept in creating this movepool. Aurumoth has an excellent coverage and shouldn't need Hidden Power on any set, with the exception of a niche set specifically aiming Hidden Power Ground at something like Heatran. I tried to bridge the gap between the weak Pokemon associated with the Bug typing from our earliest childhood Pokemon memories with a terrifying and versatile sweeper able to use the strongest moves of both its types.

Aurumoth is also very risky, in that its major Bug STAB is Megahorn and it's next strongest safe physical option is Bug Bite. While this was in part a concern for space, it also fits in with what Heracross learns. I think this also makes it a compelling factor for No Guard, which doesn't have to deal with the accuracy issue. For coverage it has Close Combat which makes it frail and Hydro Pump which has the same kind of accuracy issue - again fixed by No Guard, but it makes the special set favor more power. As far as support, every single part of Aurumoth's support movepool is geared to maximum interference. When Aurumoth is in, your opponent has little recourse but to attack, because the support options Aurumoth does have are Trickscarfing to cripple foes, Whirlwind to phaze out a reactionary switch and continue to spread hazard damage, Burn and Paralysis that can cripple sweepers, or Magic Coat to bounce back what a foe thought was a safe setup. Thanks to Illusion, you know there's always a potential you'll be facing Aurumoth at the moment, and it's either going to set up for a sweep, blast a huge hole in whatever is in front of it, or surprise you with some very nasty disruption. Aurumoth isn't a sacrificial pawn supporting the team's overall threat, it is a threat in and of itself.

Finally, I think all of Aurumoth's sets will end up equal. If you notice, Aurumoth doesn't have any boosters that increase a defense EXCEPT Cotton Guard, which it can convert directly to offense with Weak Armor, and as the sole +3 Booster it also works well with Stored Power. Its got both +2 boosters so it won't favor Physical over Special, since the physical set is more focused with a priority option while the special set has much more coverage and features attacks with fewer drawbacks. Mixed sets are also effective, with Megahorn and Close Combat providing brute options for special sets, and Psycho Boost, Hydro Pump, and Thunder providing power for physical ones. (While Aurumoth can't use Close Combat + Hydro Pump on the same set, there's little reason to with Aqua Tail and Aura Sphere / Focus Blast available, respectively.)

I've changed how I use precedent a bit from when I made the argument last project. This is my main basis behind any flavour arguments that I make.

In the following, an attribute x represents one of the Pokémon's types or abilities, X is the entire collection of the Pokémon's attributes x, m represents a move, and M is a collection of moves.

A move m has strong precedent with x if the following is true: If at least two Generation V Pokémon have x and m is not a Generation V move, then all G5 Pokémon with x have m. Otherwise, all Pokémon with x have m. For example, Iron Defense has strong precedent with Generation V carriers of No Guard in the level movepool.

A move m has (normal) precedent with x if the following is true: If at least one G5 Pokémon has x and m is not a G5 move, then at least one G5 Pokémon with x has m. Otherwise, at least one Pokémon with x has m. For example, Silver Wind has normal precedent with Bug-types. Unlike strong precedent, by "having a move" I mean having the move with the same STAB status. Usually, when I say "normal precedent", I am excluding strong precedent.

A move m has weak precedent with x if at least one G5 Pokémon has x and at least one Pokémon with x has m. Usually, though, when I say "weak precedent", I am excluding normal precedent. For example, Close Combat has weak precedent with Bug-types.

A move m has precedent with M if the following is true: If at least two G5 Pokémon with any attribute in X have all of M and m is not a Generation V move, then all G5 Pokémon with any attribute in X and all of M have m. Otherwise, all Pokémon possessing any attribute in X and all of M have m.

This movepool has all moves that have strong attribute precedent with any of its types or abilities. It also has move collections stemming by move precedent from a specifically chosen collection of moves. As well, there are "exceptions" for which I didn't call precedent, most of which have normal precedent, though a few have weak precedent (which I tried my best to avoid unless necessary).

Chosen moves that generated no other moves save the 14 typical moves that keep cropping up are:

AncientPower
Bide*
Focus Blast
Giga Impact
Hyper Beam
Thunderbolt

Bide is possessed only by a single Generation V No Guard Pokémon line (Shelmet). I also made an exception for Close Combat because it's just so far "gone" as far as precedent goes (Pinsir and Heracross) that it would unleash a whole other animal of moves. I have also made an exception for Dragon Dance, as I'll explain a bit later.

Most of these moves are pretty standard. Bug Buzz comes with Silver Wind, Psychic comes with the typing, and Megahorn and Psyshock are obvious (Psyshock comes with Heal Pulse). BoltBeam and Thunder are pretty much necessary since they're the only real way for mixed CAP 4 to get past the Therians and some Dragon-types with anything resembling ease. As well, I have Focus Blast, which, as you may recall, I strongly implied I made my stat spread around using. Of course, there are also support options in Will-O-Wisp, Wish and Thunder Wave (packaged with Thunder), as well as Tail Glow for some "zomg kill it KILL IT" shenanigans.

As for notable exclusions:

The banning of Flamethrower and Fire Blast actually restricts the movepool quite severely in terms of Fire-type attacks, leaving me with basically no options other than Incinerate and Will-O-Wisp. For instance, the only Pokémon with Overheat alone are random Electric-types. So I disagree with the idea of including Overheat or some other Fire-type moves for the sake of flavour, especially when Aurumoth is actually weak against Fire.

Blizzard is missing as well. The thing about Blizzard for me is that it comes with some bizarre (and banned) VGMs shared by Vanilluxe and Genesect. Competitively speaking, it has very little benefit. It does very few things that aren't achieved by Ice Beam or Thunder, namely OHKOing Dragonite through Multiscale with fully invested Life Orb Timid, and OHKOing Therian Thundurus with uninvested Life Orb Jolly. I suppose a case can be made at least for Therian Thundurus, but either way, both of these are mitigated by Stealth Rock support, anyway, so it's not a big deal.

I don't really see the point in Water or Ground-type moves when Aurumoth already has coverage for Electric, Fighting and Ice. It can already cover pretty much everything. In terms of flavour, Aurumoth has no indication that it has any relation to water. Surf doesn't just go to everybody, and Hydro Pump certainly doesn't, either.

As for the physical moves, Aurumoth would probably have benefited far more from the elemental punches than from anything like Earthquake or Stone Edge, which I don't think add much to the coverage, especially considering Close Combat. I'd imagine that Aurumoth would use Megahorn and Close Combat, and fill in the other two slots with two special coverage moves (looking at BoltBeam in particular), or a setup move and one coverage move. I feel that this is more efficient for dealing with Intimidate users and some other Pokémon than any physical move on offer can accomplish.

I actually wrote a script to search through PS!'s learnset database for purposes like this one, which really, really helped me with move-move precedent. So with that in mind, I hope that people will see that I put a lot of thought and effort into making this movepool realistic considering the rather bizarre combination of types and abilities that Aurumoth has.

On Quiver Dance: I was very unsure as to what to do with this move for a while. I have come up with arguments tenuously for Quiver Dance, as well as arguments tenuously against it (with a middle ground proposal). With all this in mind, and with the middle ground unlikely to generate much support, I have decided against including Quiver Dance because of its potential to magnify luck factors to decide matchups and even decide games. If you look at all of the damage calculations, you'll see that many of them rely on a hit that is far from guaranteed. One even has a significant paralysis chance to pretty much halt Aurumoth's sweeping attempt. This means that many of Aurumoth's matchups between its checks goes all-or-nothing depending on a dice roll. It also compels Aurumoth to run Illusion or Weak Armour over No Guard, much more than with other sets, since most of the dice rolls are expected to favour it (and No Guard has no effect on the Thunder paralysis chance). I do not want a playtest that I intended to promote skill to promote luck instead.

All that said, Dragon Dance is different. If I've taken anything out of my investigation of Quiver Dance, it's that Dragon Dance is certainly not risk-reducing, and moreover, it wouldn't even be the primary set. Swords Dance and Tail Glow achieve things that Dragon Dance doesn't. 4-attack sets achieve things that none of the setup moves do. Additionally, Dragon Dance Aurumoth actually benefits significantly from No Guard for removing the miss chance of its main STAB. I believe that Dragon Dance is healthy for Aurumoth, even if it's a gigantic affront to flavour.

My movepool is loosely based on Dragonite's; though the patterns are different, the move progression is fairly similar. There are hints of a classic bug style progression in the beginning (other than Wish), but after that, Aurumoth really comes into its own and progresses in a way that's not solely representative of an angel or a moth, but has some elements of both while giving Aurumoth its own individuality based on the previously mentioned precedent rules. I'm kind of using a heavy warrior angel bent here, though moves like Silver Wind and Bug Buzz bring the theme "back to earth", as it were. I feel that not going too far into angelic symbolism or classic bug progression is important in a flavour sense because Aurumoth is neither a classic early-game bug (or even a typical moth) nor some kind of holy messenger sent by Arceus for vague purposes. I also feel that it's unnecessary to mooch signature moves off of other Pokémon like Vespiquen.

The move progression starts off with a move that's literally called "Perseverance" in Japanese, an extremely fitting move for a bug that might be running into troubles early on in its "walk". This is followed by its first offensive powers. Notably, I have a bit of a dark twist in Pursuit, taking the idea that God will follow people who stray from him to the ends of the earth (e.g. Jonah) and converting it into something that may be morally ambiguous. After Agility, things start getting more serious, as Aurumoth improves its abilities both physically and spiritually, while learning Heal Pulse along the way. Then there's its endgame. Aurumoth learns Dragon Dance, and then gains a "weapon" or "ultimate fighting technique" of sorts in Megahorn. To top it off, it learns to use its holy aura to augment its mighty power (Tail Glow), followed by the ultimate mega laser death attack. The whole "burning one" connotation is really not that complicated to pull off without Fire-type moves, since Hyper Beam fits every interpretation of an almighty Ultimate Break Supernova Foresaken Megidolaon Meteor Wing punishment by holy fire. It really does. Or how about, "Holy shit, good thing we were hiding behind this mountain!"

It seems that some people don't like Substitute. Indeed, it is generically a safe move. Like No Guard before it, though, this is exactly what makes Substitute counter-intuitive as a move for the Risky Business concept. Substitute costs a moveslot and 25% of Aurumoth's HP. That's nothing to sneeze at when Aurumoth wants to use a Life Orb, it is vulnerable to all sorts of passive damage, and it wants precious moveslots for coverage/setup/support moves (this is especially true for the physical/mixed attacker). Additionally, while it is true that real offensive Pokémon often have effective Substitute sets, it is often the case that the Substitute sets are not the best sets, and maybe they even have significant problems. This makes Substitute a good "control group" type of move, to see whether Aurumoth would go for the "safety move" or refuse it for different benefits.

Now, you may be asking whether we can't just argue our way into any "safe" move, or most "safe" moves. Maybe we can. Either way, I think it reveals something rather profound about the concept of safety when applied to a move in a vacuum.

The rest of the stuff is pretty much explained in the "chosen moves" section, so I won't bother repeating those arguments here.

I don't see Fly as necessary, and it might even be against the grain that Game Freak has set, since there's only one Bug-type that actually has Fly.

Again, this is already essentially explained in the "chosen moves" section. I'm so glad that tutors exist now. Earth Power and Trick are probably the most prominent appearances here. Magic Coat and Zen Headbutt are cool additions as well. I would put in Wonder Room and Magic Room like so many others have, but it just doesn't seem like there is a particular reason for me to do so. Even if you exclude Darmanitan Zen Mode from the list of Generation V Psychic Pokémon, these moves are not shared amongst the entire list, while banned moves like Energy Ball and Trick Room are.

The fact that this pool is almost entirely non-competitive was actually intentional, though the reasons for it are obsolete now. You might also notice that many of these moves are variations of the level moves. Yanmega can get all of these in Generation IV, so they're all legal.

Korski:I love the level up movepool. Very creative and it is really flavorful. I wish, however, that the overall pool would have a bit more variety in physical coverage. With the current pool there is a definite special bias as well as leading to a definite favoring to Dragon Dance-X Scissor/Megahorn-Zen Headbutt-Close Combat as the most "useful" physical set.Of course the user could always run a mixed set but why would they when it would be simpler (and more beneficial EV-wise) to simply run a fully special set with the same coverage. It could even use Psyshock to attack special walls. I guess it's fine as is, but I would rather that an Attack stat like that didn't go to waste on a pseudo-legendary.

I cut this down to 16 moves, much more reasonable that the 21 that the first draft of this had.

Flavour-wise, I think I've got this about right, with clearly, meant-to-be-powerful moves at the back end of the scale but with some nice options at the front end, including Glare early on. I like the touch of attack order and defend order at the same level, as I picture Auru using its psychic powers to summon other bugs to do its bidding, so those two moves are a good match for it.

I changed my mind regarding moves available as a prevo, as it occurred to me that this would be problematic. Originally I planned for a few "caterpillar" or "cocoon" poke moves, ie. harden, electroweb, bide, string shot to be available, but I realised that this would be problematic, as I can't picture a caterpillar learning powerful moves that I wanted to be available as egg moves, such as Quiver Dance or Megahorn. So I cut them out entirely and decided to operate under the assumption that any prevos to Aurumoth will be similar enough to it to learn the same sort of moves, and set the levels Aurumoth learns so that it starts learning moves from the get-go.

This is up to nine, up from the rather anemic-looking six I had in the first version. Two of Auru's most powerful options come from here, Megahorn and Quiver Dance. I also added Disable courtesy of Venomoth in there as well, which isn't listed as a VGM but I can actually see being useful to disable coverage moves and giving it free time to set up. Final Gambit could also be a nasty surprise, thanks to Auru's nice base HP.

Dragon Dance was a move I had a hard time justifying including in either level up or egg moves, as that would necessitate either letting it have a move that sticks out like a sore thumb in its movepool (Aurumoth does not resemble a dragon in any way shape or form) or sticking it in an egg group which it wouldn't belong (it would either have to go in Water or Monster, and to me it really doesn't fit either.) I do see it possibly fitting in here though, as they hand out Pokes with strange moves this way quite a lot. I dunno, maybe as a movie promotion or something. This does mean that DD will probably be illegal with Megahorn - Auru will have to use Attack Order on a DD set. At first I considered changing this, but now I think I'll leave it that way. I think it'll encourage people to not just make a B-line for DDance when it comes to physical sets, and will make people consider Choice or SD with Espeed. At the same time, I don't feel that I'm neutering a DD set too badly, as Attack Order is far from a worthless attacking move, and it even has its own advantages over Megahorn.

Balance between physical and special offense was difficult, because as a Bug / Psychic type, Aurumoth doesn't have a wide variety of physically offensive options, at least not ones that fit the flavour of the poke we have right now. However, what its physical movepool lacks in variety it makes up for in immediate power, as a special set doesn't really have anything as brutal as STAB Megahorn aside from Psycho Boost, which is both of an arguably inferior attacking type and comes with a large immediate drawback. Attack Order is a nice safe move with perfect accuracy and a modest base power. Zen Headbutt is as powerful as any other special Psychic attack on turn 1 and comes with a nice flinch chance, though the chance to miss isn't attractive. Superpower is there to nail more or less anything that resists both STABs, but can't be spammed as Close Combat potentially could be. However, Extremespeed is probably going to be a physical set's best boon. With 120 attack, Aurumoth is the second strongest wielder of this move in OU, and is outright the strongest after one turn of setup thanks to Swords Dance, which Dragonite has no access to. I feel that this doesn't overpower Aurumoth, as Extremespeed won't stop its principle checks of Terrakion, Scizor and Genesect unless they're already severely weakened. Pursuit means that Aurumoth looks set to be the bane of almost every other Psychic-type in the tier.

Special movepool is a little more varied, particularly when it comes to Psychic STAB, but mostly less powerful off the bat. Bug / Psychic / Electric is imo the best special attacking combo available to Auru, and to make sure this didn't skew things too far in favour of special attacking sets I allowed Thunder, but not Thunderbolt, meaning that No Guard is needed for reliable accuracy on the move. Other coverage options include Focus Blast and Earth Power. The former does heavy damage to more or less anything that resists bug or psychic, but has shaky accuracy. The latter is more accurate, but doesn't hit as hard and doesn't have quite as good coverage. While rain is pretty common in OU, I don't think it's so common that you can rely on it. Besides, I can see Rain being pretty hostile to Aurumoth, as it isn't going to stand up to boosted Hydro Pumps and the like for long with that special defense. I left out Overheat as I couldn't square it away with the flavour side - I think HP fire will suffice to see to Scizor and Genesect, and anything else ought to be shot down by Focus Blast or Earth Power (Jirachi is potentially problematic). I kind of wish that Heat Wave was allowed, that would have been nice.

Attacking VGMs I left out and why(Move your mouse to reveal the content)Attacking VGMs I left out and why (open)Attacking VGMs I left out and why (close)

X-Scissor: Didn't fit with the flavour, outclassed by Attack Order anyway

Psycho Cut: Similar case to above.

Extrasensory: It sucks, waste of a VGM slot when Psychic, Psyshock and Stored Power are available.

Close Combat: Too spammable and doesn't fit with the flavour. Superpower is a better fit.

Cross Chop: See above.

Brick Break: Too weak, every other poke that learns this actually has arms.

Hammer Arm: No arms to hammer with.

Overheat: Not flavourful, and kind of unnecessary, the pokes Auru will want to hit with a fire attack are mostly 4X weak or have weak special defense, meaning HP Fire should suffice.

Thunderbolt: Offers great coverage with STAB, removed to better incentivise No Guard and balance special and physical.

Earthquake: Not flavourful seeing as EQ users that arent ground types usually look physically powerful or bulky. Auru doesn't and also seems to never physically touch the ground. Doesn't offer particularly improved coverage as opposed to Superpower.

Stone Edge, Rock Slide: Isn't that great for coverage, poor fit for flavour.

Blizzard, Ice Beam: I didn't feel that either of these offered too much in the way of coverage. If Auru desperately needs an ice move for some reason, HP Ice is always available.

Focus Punch: No arms to punch with.

Sucker Punch: I felt that Extremespeed was the better priority option and that having both would be redundant.

There's plenty of nasty little surprises for opponents hiding in here to give the opponent pause and stop it from becoming pidgeonholed too much as a sweeper. Options such as Taunt and Magic Coat potentially allow it to function as a great anti-lead and Stallbreaker. Memento is potentially a really nice option to cripple a switchin and then let some other dangerous threat set up. Glare and Will-O-Wisp can cripple checks that Auru might not be able to kill with a coverage move - a burned Scizor or paralysed Genesect will be of little use to anyone.

As for QD and DD, I've finally made up my mind. I've decided to just leave it in there and damn the consequences. I'm still not 100% convinced that it won't pidgeonhole Auru too greatly into a special sweeping role, but I figure that with strong priority on the other side of the spectrum as balance that I've done my best to ensure that it won't. Plus, there's the issue of coverage moves with shaky accuracy on the special side, and I think that people won't want to be forced to run No Guard and will rather try out Weak Armor and especially Illusion, so hopefully it all balances out in the end.

Non-Attacking VGMs I left out and why(Move your mouse to reveal the content)Non-Attacking VGMs I left out and why (open)Non-Attacking VGMs I left out and why (close)

Reflect: Pruned to allow room for other moves. Didn't fit the concept even though it did fit the flavour.

Wish: I thought this was a distraction. Could have been nice but there are better pokes to wishpass and allowing Auru any recover kind of runs against the grain of the project.

Healing Wish: I thought that this and Memento were redundant together. Just not enough room for it.

Agility: I don't think Auru is really powerful enough to consider boosting speed without also boosting its attacking power. You could potentially try double-dance sets. If I replace Quiver Dance this could potentially go in to make up for it.

Edit: Final Submission made, a couple of minor errors corrected and explanations updated.

Closing Comments:

The way that Aurumoth has been built up so far, the way I see it is that the best avenue to it fulfilling its mandate of being high risk, high reward, is to tap into the psychological element of play - mind games as you will. Now, for that to work on this poke, variety and unpredictability is essential - it needs a lot of good options, and none of them can be too dominant over the others or else that option becomes its dominant set, the other sets become neglected, and that unpredictability is lost. I think this movepool does a decent job of providing a wide array of options but keeping them all in balance - while there isn't a single poke in OU that won't be threatened by some version of Aurumoth or another, there isn't any Aurumoth set that I can think of that threatens them all at once. Still, in the hands of a skilled player who's prepared to be brave with predictions, I can see our sinister insectoid friend being terrifying to face in OU, but not overpowered.

Also, can I just say that I've really enjoyed putting this together, as it's made me think carefully about it. There were plenty of challenges to overcome, whether it was not having all of the tools I would have liked to work with, struggling with the disconnect between pure competitive number-crunching and the realities of flavour elements, and just plain running up against limits, but they were all fun to engage with and attempt to overcome. I don't expect this to be the winning submission, but if it isn't I think I've still learned quite a lot and I'd do it again in the future without hesitation.

There's also a couple of problems here. I see Defend Order isn't classed as a VGM, despite the fact that it does the same thing as Cosmic Power, which is a VGM.

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I already said that Defend Order was Allowed as it's a Cosmic Power equivalent but forgot to add it to the OP. Apologies.

Additionally, Moves like Hypnosis, Sing and Grasswhistle aren't considered VGMs, and on most pokes they wouldn't be, but with No Guard they're essentially Spore. I've not included them so as to stick to the spirit of the project, as Spore and Sleep Powder were banned moves from the get-go, but they are technically allowed as non-VGMs, right?

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I specifically disallowed all sleep-inducing moves, including non-VGMs, in the Non-Attacking moves thread. Even if I hadn't, I also disallowed all moves with less than 70% accuracy.

jas61292: Hydro Pump seems to me to be the cherry on top for making this an overpowered movepool. Foes attempting to overpower Aurumoth from an offensive standpoint could find themselves obliterated by Hydro Pump, as two relatively common weaknesses, Fire and Rock, would strugggle to survive, with a 100% accuracy HP hits them. Surf and Aqua Tail are not too far behind, but at least dont choose
Hydro Pump if you must have a Water VGM.
On the non attacking side of the spectrum, I advise getting rid of Reflect and Light Screen. To me, raising your defense for multiple turns doesn't seem risky enough. I'd recommend replacing them with Memento and Healing Wish this provides Aurumoth a risky, yet rewarding way of finishing up a battle.
Other then that, this is my favorite movepool so far. Not much else to say. :)

I'm well aware of the issues, bmb. Thanks for the post though lol. I made a very rough WIP in word and just copied it in here before I forgot. I'll be sure to have a legal, well organized and thought-out submission. It's a mess. I know.

I don't know why, but this time around, I'm finding allowed/disallowed moves being murky. I'd really like it if you could flesh out the allowed/disallowed options officially in the lists in the respective threads.

I mean Recycle isn't even a VGM. I don't know why it's disallowed. And as for Hone Claws, that was my honest mistake thinking it was considered outclassed by Swords Dance and thus allowed, but it's not officially outclassed, so I totally get that now. Aerial Ace and Shadow Claw were based on my mistaken thinking about VGMs vs VGMs on a given CAP. But Grass Knot? Now I'm confused. I have Energy Ball in there too. Is Grass Knot disallowed but Energy Ball not? They're both VGMs.

In the past we would sometimes have posts like this:

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Imho sometimes we give CAP too much versatility. This is very obvious when we go give out CAP excellent BSR and then adjust the movepool limit. I made this movepool with the original process-suggested movepool limits of 65/30. Right now I have 57 moves, 30 are VGMs. It's a Final Submission, but I'm hoping to edit in some paragraphs before the deadline.

Level-Up Moves: 13 moves (3 repeats), 9 VGM

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Surprise!
No egg moves. I'm pushing for Aurumon to be a small (pixie-sized) no-gender stand-alone legendary Pokemon. Not sure if movepool submitters have a say on these matters, but that's how this movepool was designed to be.

I only got to form this list after doing TM and Tutors, so I had little room but knew the essential STABs needed to be here. Psychic and Psyshock are covered well enough by TMs and Zen Headbutt is a Tutor move, so I put Psycho Cut and Stored Power in Level Up and gave it good Bug STAB: Bug Buzz and Megahorn, with Silver Wind at the middle level. For low level STAB I just scanned what moves remained and selected Leech Life and Confusion.

Other than STAB moves, there is Stun Spore for paralysis, Flash for flavor, Wish for recovery and Tail Glow for boosting, all pretty obvious. I wanted to add ExtremeSpeed into Aurumoth's Level Up to make it available to any physical or mixed sets in need of priority, hence it's the second-to-last move (followed by only Megahorn). With ExtremeSpeed learned late, I filled the remaining slots up with other moves that have speedy flavor: Quick Attack, Swift and Agility.

TMs List

VGMs: 23 (2 repeats)
Moves: 39 (2 repeats)

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There is a fair number of required VGMs I had to keep, but nonetheless I am glad with this list. The TMs provide Psyshock, Psychic and X-Scissor as far as STAB goes, then coverage in Thunder(bolt), Overheat, Focus Blast, Stone Edge and the universal Hidden Power; there's also Solarbeam on the off-chance Aurumoth will play on a Sun team. There's also a fair number of support moves, including status from Toxic, WoW, and T-Wave, Reflect and Safeguard, Taunt to stop phazers, Sunny Day (to complement Solarbeam/Overheat) and Rain Dance for weather control and even Telekinesis because it's a Psychic type. Other than those, there's basically the required moves (Protect, Substitute, Facade, Attract, Struggle Bug, etc.) left, although Cut is pure flavor, hinting how Aurumoth can use those wings. Earlier Fly was here too, but since Aurumoth isn't a Flying type I removed the HM.

Tutor Moves List

VGMs: 5
Moves: 10

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Provides additional offensive (Aqua Tail, Earth Power, Icy Wind, Zen Headbutt) and support (Magic Coat, Trick) options, or just made sense flavor-wise (Magic Room, Role Play and Wonder Room are all Psychic moves, while Bug Bite is a Bug move). This list was my starting point followed by TMs, but I still had to go back and cut some stuff out.

Egg Moves List

VGMs: 1
Moves: 10

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By the time I got to do Egg Moves, I had done a lot of pruning and finally had just about everything covered. There was still Close Combat, but that easily comes from Heracross and Pinsir, so the rest of the moves are there for flavor mostly: Fury Cutter and Slash give Aurumoth's wings another angle, Feint builds upon its speedy-flavored moves for ExtremeSpeed, Gust I wanted to squeeze into the Level Up but took out to make room for Stun Spore, Mind Reader is psychic flavor like Telekinesis in TMs. Only Ancientpower, Final Gambit and Ominous Wind, although situational, expand its offensive options slightly. Fire Spin was my final addition - it joins Incinerate and Overheat, but more importantly, it has potential on gimmicky sets with either Illusion (to trap the wrong switch in) or No Guard (to improve its accuracy).

Event List

VGMs: 4
Moves: 4

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Since I didn't put Dragon Dance in its Level Up Movepoll, I chose to throw it along with Psycho Boost in its Event moveset - then added Close Combat, which physical Aurumoth would probably want, since using Dragon Dance itself means you're going that route anyway. The other physical moves are easily available: Megahorn and Extremespeed are in Level Up already, Stone Edge and X-Scissor are TMs, Zen Headbutt and Aqua Tail are Tutor moves. This ensures that, at least, Aurumoth's key moves can be matched without any illegalities. Finally, Mirror Coat is here because I couldn't squeeze it in elsewhere after adding it into the VGMs list.

For the event to not be locked into any one ability, Aurumoth (or its pre-evo) is distributed as an egg to be hatched, with the moveset locked but nature and ability randomized. At least that seems like a workable explanation to me...

Total VGMs (38 plus Return)

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For every move I took away, there's essentially the same basic reason: space had to be made for others. However, to just list a few specific ones:

Aura Sphere - I like this move very much, although I like it rare, hence not given easily to every CAP we're making. In the case of Aurumoth, the existence of other moves (No Guard Focus Blast, Hidden Power Fighting, Close Combat for physical Fighting coverage and Earth Power as reliable special anti-Steel) made me feel that the lack of Aura Sphere is pretty well covered already.

Blizzard & Ice Beam - When the need for VGM slots necessitated reduced coverage, Ice moves were the first to go. Between Stone Edge for fliers (especially Dragons), Thunder(bolt) to join that, Aqua Tail to handle Ground types (plus Rock) and Overheat to smash Grass (which lose to Bug Buzz anyway), Ice coverage wasn't that hard to part with. Still, I left in Icy Wind as a Tutor to give Aurumoth at least SOME kind of Ice coverage, and the Speed drop might just let it get through some of its checks in a pinch.

Counter - Although the surprise value from Focus Sash and this is pretty defining of risk and reward, when making edits I could only squeeze in one move, not both, and out of the pair I chose Mirror Coat. With no way to boost its SDF Aurumoth is going to be targeted a lot by special attacks and Mirror Coat can better capitalize on this; it gets bonus points on the surprise of Illusion sets but also pairs well with Weak Armor sets, punishing special attacks that wouldn't hit it (it even, to an extent, synergizes with No Guard as it guarantees inaccurate special moves can't miss it on the turn it really needs to Mirror Coat their damage back). Although it might not make it to its standard sets, having it in its arsenal can make enemies think twice about how to handle it.

Cross Chop & Superpower - I really wanted to see Cross Chop + Stone Edge on the physical set, however, between Megahorn, Zen Headbutt and ExtremeSpeed it'd have a hard time finding room. Ultimately though, I had to cut down until just one physical Fighting move - and Close Combat took that place, outclassing both Cross Chop and Superpower, especially as a reliable coverage move on the physical sweeper.

Defense boosters - In a catch-all term I mean here the moves Amnesia, Barrier, Cotton Spore, Calm Mind, Cosmic Power and Light Screen. When pruning the support options these were quick to leave, although I left solely Reflect as Aurumoth's team support option. The single screen stresses its weakness to special attacks better, which is fine.

Destiny Bond/Healing Wish/Memento - Although they are risky, the other support options seem more worth Aurumoth's time compared to suiciding to neuter one threat or help its teammates. With its offenses it can trade one for one simply attacking and then dying to a revenger (if it's Scarfed your next switch in might be able to setup on it anyway).

Earthquake - It really could've been either Earthquake or Earth Power that remained, but in the end, with Close Combat and Focus Blast dictating reliable and unreliable Fighting coverage I felt adding the reliable Earth Power on the special side allowed for a better balance of coverage.

Glare - Although I like Glare, I settled for Stun Spore so that Aurumoth players have a significant choice to make. Without picking No Guard they'll need to pick an unreliable Stun Spore or the reliable Thunder Wave that, however, invites Ground switch ins. This dynamic felt better than the safe middle ground of Glare, so in the end I let that move go.

Hydro Pump & Surf - With Electric, Fire, and even Ground coverage on the special side, I felt adding Surf or Hydro Pump would've shifted Aurumoth's focus too much to the special side of things. Thus when deciding its single Water coverage move, I picked Aqua Tail instead of these, freeing up Egg Move issues too since it's a Tutor Move. That leaves Aurumoth with two STABs, Extremespeed, Fighting, Rock, and Water coverage to choose from for its physical sets, which isn't too bad.

Quiver Dance - I never saw the necessity of this move, between Dragon Dance, Agility, Tail Glow, and the potential Weak Armor boost, there are lots of decisions Aurumoth players can make instead of slapping Quiver Dance on and going to town with coverage of their choice.

Rock Slide - Giving Aurumoth only Stone Edge makes the most of its No Guard ability while the power drop is significant, so it was the choice to cut down; Necturna's example helped me make this choice. I didn't want to get rid of Stone Edge itself as well because without it, Aurumoth's physical coverage would be significantly compromised, particularly vs Flying types (Heracross has that problem), many of which are Dragons (and I did drop the Ice moves, so I couldn't let that go).

Signal Beam - Another move axed to accomodate others, although it makes sense flavor-wise, I had no reason to keep it when Bug Buzz is a Level Up move already.

Whirlwind - This wouldn't have been THAT hard to fit into the Egg Movepoll since there's plenty of Bug parents that could teach Whirlwind, but given that Aurumoth has Taunt and Magic Coat to disrupt rather than shuffle enemies, I don't think this move will be missed too much.

Final Comments

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There isn't much left for me to say, really. This movepoll stage was sure difficult because of the limits imposed, but I'm glad with the movepoll after all the pruning. It offers Aurumoth a selection of STAB moves, both physical and special, an array of coverage moves for both its physical and special sets, boosting moves in Swords Dance, Dragon Dance, Agility and Tail Glow to choose from, access to status except sleep, team support, disruption through Taunt, Trick and even Magic Coat, plus a few gimmicks and flavor to top it off. At the least I trust it can compete with any other movepolls that have shown up so far without bringing me shame.

Long post is long... I'll finish here. If there's no problems or comments to this movepoll I'll mark it as final submission and wait for the poll, I guess.

Also Energy Ball is also disallowed, I skipped over it when I went over them (was sort of preoccupied at the time).

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Having difficulties with your movepool?

This was supposed to be a beta and isn't actually going to be finalised until the VGM updates are finished, but this little applet should be useful if you're struggling to build a movepool or don't want to keep counting VGMs.

Can't guarantee it will work properly, but I've tried it and haven't had any problems yet, for what it's worth. Helps more with cross-referencing than it does with actually building a movepool since you still have to enter everything manually...

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EDIT: Adding stuff to movepool spreadsheet, will comment on further illegalities:

Mari - Bounce, Shadow Claw and Energy Ball are not Allowed.

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EDIT: By the way guys: It really helps with editing if you post or make an edit or something whenever you make a change to the movepools so I can update. Also... I am going to be using the spreadsheet alone for selection of movepools for sake of avoiding flavour bias, so if there's any discrepancy between your current movepool and the one in the spreadsheet, you had best post quickly, as if a discrepancy is discovered after the close of this thread I may well decide to disqualify it (though I will do my utmost to check every movepool before I close, but you guys can help me out here).

Finally got around to that whole "precedent" stuff that nobody expected at all, oh no... but it's more refined than last time, so hopefully it will explain most of my flavour decisions to tide people over before I explain the level-up and such.